The Insider has unmasked the GRU officer helping the Kremlin evade sanctions from his base in the heart of Europe

Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer Viktor Labin has set up shop in Brussels, home to the European Commission and NATO headquarters. From his office in a nondescript seven-story building on the outskirts of the Belgian capital, Labin supplies Russian arms manufacturers with European-made coordinate-measuring machines, a high-tech machine tool critical in the production of the Kremlin’s hypersonic Kinzhal missile. The sanctions-busting operation has become a family business. Labin’s younger son runs the Moscow-based middleman that delivers his father’s shipments to end users in Russia, while his elder son pitches in by organizing pro-Kremlin protests across Europe. Despite the Labin family’s unabashed efforts to aid the Russian military-industrial complex, none of them has been placed on the European Union’s sanctions list.

Critical machine tools for the Russian military-industrial complex

In October, The Insider revealed how gaps in the complex web of Western sanctions policies have allowed Russia to continue procuring many of the foreign-made tools and components necessary for the production of its hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile, one of the “wonder weapons” unveiled by Vladimir Putin during an infamous 2018 speech that included computer generated graphics showing Russian warheads flying towards the United States. That particular sanctions-busting scheme relied on loopholes and exceptions that make it possible for European companies to continue doing business with key players in the Kremlin’s military-industrial complex — and to do so without formally violating any regulations. However, not all of the methods Moscow uses to keep its war machine running fall “within the parameters of the law.”

One of the firms mentioned in The Insider’s October report was the Moscow-based Sonatek LLC (ООО «Сонатек»), which imports high precision machine tools from a range of European companies hailing from Italy (Tomelleri Engineering), Germany (MESSTECHNIK GMBH) and the United Kingdom (Aberlink). Russia has yet to establish a suitable import substitution alternative for coordinate-measuring machines, making the Russian military-industrial complex heavily reliant on imported products sourced through Sonatek. Although Russian government defense contracts have been classified in recent years, The Insider has obtained information indicating that Sonatek provided supply and maintenance services to a minimum of 18 Russian defense companies in 2022.

After The Insider’s October report was published, several of the European shipping companies that previously offered their services to Sonatek distanced themselves from the Moscow middleman. Among them was Baltic Shipping Agency LTD, a Poland-based firm that was adamant about its desire not to take part in “illegal activities aimed at circumventing sanctions.” However, the Baltic Shipping Agency did indeed exploit gaps in sanctions legislation in order to deliver coordinate-measuring machines to a key cog in the Russian war machine.

But the scheme discovered by The Insider last year turned out not to have been Sonatek’s only path around Western sanctions. Months before that report was released, a GRU officer named Viktor Labin was already operating on the ground in Brussels, routing European technology to the Russian reseller via a shell company registered in Turkey. Not coincidentally, that GRU officer is the father of Sonatek’s owner and CEO, the 35-year-old Ruslan Labin.

In his correspondence with The Insider, Ruslan Labin did not deny that Sonatek LLC is indeed affiliated with the “18 Russian defense companies” in question, responding that, “These are our customers, we used to supply them with something [and] maybe we’re supplying them now.”

When asked directly whether he and his family members are employees of Russia’s Defense Ministry, he explained, “My father is a businessman, but my brother and I never served in the army” — followed by a smiling emoticon.

A GRU agent under the noses of the European Commission and NATO

Viktor Labin is the founder of the Belgian company Groupe d’Investissement Financier.

Labin’s sons, Roman Labin and the aforementioned Sonatek CEO Ruslan Labin, are listed as directors on Groupe d’Investissement Financier official documents.

Groupe d’Investissement Financier is headquartered at Avenue de la Ferme Rose, 7, a short drive south from the Brussels city center. It was here that The Insider met with Viktor Labin, who claimed that, “after the sanctions” were imposed on Russian companies following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the elder Labin stopped making deliveries to his son’s firm in Moscow.

However, records show that Groupe d’Investissement Financier has done extensive business with Sonatek, delivering machines and equipment to the Russian firm’s Moscow address. It was only in April 2023 that Viktor Labin’s Belgian entity began processing its deliveries to Sonatek through a Turkish shell company with a similar name: GROUPE D’INVESTISSEMENT FINANCIER OSBORNE. (Turkey has become a popular transshipment point for sanctioned goods being smuggled to Russian end users. As The Insider recently revealed, Taiwanese machine tools have also made their way to Russian arms manufacturers via this route).

While GRU officers do not publicly advertise their professional affiliations, all of the available information regarding Viktor Labin’s background indicates a close connection with Russia’s military intelligence arm. According to address databases, Viktor Labin was formerly registered in Moscow at the renowned dormitory of the GRU academy on Narodnoe Opolchenie Street 52, Building 4./The Geopost/